It’s so easy for us to pop down to the local store and buy a bottle of milk. We don’t stop and think how this milk got into this nice clean bottle and is sitting in the fridge waiting for us to buy it!
But where did it come from?
A cow on the farmers farm is munching away pounds and pounds of grass every day. Every day this grass is churned through the cow’s four stomachs and is then stored in the udders for a calf to drink. But instead the farmer comes along and milks the cow and the milk is then pasturised to clean it of impurities before it is sent off to the dairy company that has bought it from the farmer. The dairy company then processes it, packs it into bottles and slaps a shiny clean sticker on it and sends it off to the local stores.
Well! In Tribeworld things are quite different. Some foods are not available anymore and only foods that are renewable resources are the ones they’ll be eating in a few years time. It won’t be long before the tinned food runs out.
Meat is a luxury in Tribeworld and also a necessity. Meat is full of vitamins that are essential for the body. Being a vegetarian is okay but you need to eat a variety of vegetables to make sure you’re getting all the vitamins and minerals you need. There aren’t many people in Tribeworld who are farming animals and if so there won’t be nearly enough of them to be slaughtering them each week. Farms will be slow to take off. Only once a year do these animals produce offspring.
Cows / Cattle
These are large animals that need lots and lots of grass. Rotating paddocks would be the only way to keep them all well fed. A cow would produce a lot of meat and it would be a very precious item in Tribeworld.
Cows would also produce milk constantly which wouldn’t run out unless they were stopped milking or if they weren’t getting enough grass.
Sheep
Sheep would also be a great source of meat. The wool produced by sheep would be a useful commodity if someone knew how to process it.
Smaller animals like chickens may be easier to come by. As well as providing meat they may lay eggs.
Vegetables
But farming isn’t just about animals. Many farms grow vegetables and fruit. Most vegetables are easy enough to grow if you care for them properly. Potatoes, lettuces, cabbages, carrots, beans are all fairly easy care vegetables and as time went on you could learn to grow other vegetables and be able to have them year round.
Fruit trees take a little longer to establish but when building a new world, planting trees is a great place to start.
Wheat
Flour is the basis of any bread and bread is a great food for providing energy and really filling you up. But to have flour you need wheat. Wheat would be reasonably easy to grow but harvesting it would be very physical and tiresome work. Then the wheat would need to be ground down.
So how are they doing?
As we’ve seen throughout the Tribe series, Tribes have been living off a mixture of canned foods and fresh foods. It really depends what is available at the traders markets.
Certain incidents have stopped the traders coming into the city at various stages which limits the food available. But all in all the people in Tribeworld have learnt to adapt and to use the resources they have to create food and to keep it coming. They’ve realised that the canned food they have won’t last forever.